1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to mobile communication, and more particularly to, a method and system for sending a Short Voice Service (SVS) message.
2. Description of the Related Art
A mobile communication service provides a service for sending a simple voice message as well as a text messaging service. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,954,781 describes a method to convert a voice message to a text message and send the text message to a mobile communication terminal at a reception side. However, this method requires complex speech recognition algorithms and text-to-speech converters in the mobile communication terminal.
For a voice messaging service, a voice mail box service is also provided. In the voice mail box service, if an originating user connects to a voice mail box using a mobile communication terminal in order to store a message via a voice recording, the voice mail box notifies a receiving user that the message is stored in the voice mail box. The receiving user can connect to the voice mail box by dialing his/her number and retrieve the stored message in order to listen to the message. In other words, in order to retrieve and listen to the message, the receiving user has to dial a number that allows connection to the voice mail box. Aircel, a common carrier, has introduced a technique in which a user can send a voice Short Message Service (SMS) message stored in a network and a receiving mobile communication terminal can retrieve the stored voice SMS message by dialing ‘535(Link:http://in.rediff.com/money/2006/apr/14mobile.htm)’ that is similar to a voice mail box.
U.S. Patent Publication No. 2005-286689 describes sending a voice SMS message to a service center in the form of a text SMS message.
Push-to-talk over Cellular (PoC) refers to a Push-To-Talk (PTT) service provided in cellular mobile networks. PoC, which is based upon packet-switched data transfer, uses Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) methods to encode voice transmission. In this method, a delay of 1-2 seconds occurs to allow for data buffering related to voice data transmission.
In the Reliance Introduces Talking Message Service (RITMS), a user has to dial a network number to record a message and the network will in turn send the message to a target recipient. If the recipient is busy and does not want to take a talking message call at that time, the user has to retrieve the stored talking message by dialing the same number later. Moreover, all calls made to a particular number such as ‘1234111’ for recording or retrieving a talking message are charged at a particular rate.
The foregoing methods have the following limitations:
1. Speech recognition algorithms are not efficient to process various languages and recognize accents from a variety of users.
2. Text-to-voice converters are expensive to implement in a mobile communication terminal.
3. A cumbersome process of typing a text message corresponding to a voice message using a small keypad is required in order to send the voice message.
4. A user has to know a specific language to input a text message corresponding to a voice message, and thus users who are illiterates cannot use this service.
5. An SMS message cannot be sent in most local languages, which serves as a major constraint.
6. Network intervention is required to store a voice message.
7. Delay may occur during transmission.
8. A voice message can be sent only between mobile networks, and there is no way to send the voice message to a communication network associated with a mobile network.
9. Both an originator and a receiver are charged a fee to send or retrieve a message from a network, respectively.
10. There is a complex process to retrieve a message from a network.